NATO claims of ‘victory” in Libya up in smoke as fighting erupts in Tripoli and rebel “final assault” of Sirte drags on past one week. by Tony Cartalucci

October 15, 2011 – Pro-Qaddafi protesters took to the streets in Tripoli carrying aloft the green flags synonymous with Libya’s sovereign government. The demonstration quickly unraveled into a two-hour firefight when the city’s supposed rulers, NATO-backed rebels, confronted them with machine guns. The violence underscores just how tenuous the rebel’s grip is on the capital, while ongoing battles in Bani Walid, Sabha, and Sirte illustrate how flimsy NATO’s premature claim of victory was 2 months ago after their bombardment of Tripoli.

Image: “Well done NATO!” “…the Alliance can finally chalk up an unequivocal success.” Two months later, battles are breaking out in Tripoli, entire cities still fly Libya’s green flag, and NATO bombards populated civilian centers with scores of strike sorties a day, taking out a catastrophic toll on Libya’s civilian population. In other words, an unequivocal failure. (click image to enlarge)

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Twenty to thirty strike sorties have been flown by NATO over Libya everyday since. “Key hits” by NATO have focused almost entirely on the southern city of Bani Walid and the coastal city of Sirte. Sirte is now facing the fourth “final assault” launched against it by rebel forces and has held up its defenses since this latest push began last Friday. City residents and government troops sent rebels in retreat and prompted them to return with tank columns to confront what the London Guardian claims is only “100” fighters.

Additional sources of humiliation for both NATO and the corporate-media attempting to keep afloat the increasingly incompetent rebel brigades, include the false report made by rebels earlier this week of having captured Qaddafi’s son, Mutassim, and Soros-funded Amnesty International finally providing a watered down “warning” to rebels for brutalizing prisoners, many of whom have been arrested arbitrarily. Between this, and over optimistic claims that Sirte would fall before last week’s end, the truth appears to be that the rebel’s forces are stretched well beyond their operational capacity, engaged in atrocities far beyond what NATO accused Qaddafi of as a pretext for their intervention in the first place, and that protracted resistance to NATO’s campaign has begun across Libya, even in areas thought to be “secured” including Tripoli itself.

The facade of victory the corporate-media has constructed in the past two-months made early reports of violence in Tripoli and fierce counterattacks against NATO’s proxies across Libya seem almost impossible to believe. However, the fortunes have turned from bad to worse for Libya’s rebels, and while private contractors and NATO special forces are increasing in number across Libya and amongst the rebels’ ranks, it may not be enough to save the dwindling, demoralized fighters, especially as the “fruits” of revolution begin to look more and more like servitude to foreign powers.